I saw the exhibit at the De Young Museum in June 2017.
New to the Stacks: Summer of Love
Tag Archives: Non-Fiction
Review: The Last Girl
#ReadingIsResistance
by Nadia Murad
Title: The Last Girl
Author: Nadia Murad
Published: 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1-5247-6043-4
Publisher: Tim Duggan Books
Twitter: @NadiaMuradPeace
What’s Auntie Reading Now? picture
Publisher’s Blurb
Yazidis believe that before God made man, he created seven divine beings, often called angels, who were manifestations of himself. (p. 27)
#ReadingIsResistance to ignoring the call of bearing witness to the atrocities of the world. Resistance to becoming complacent in our corner of the world while those around us suffer in unimaginable ways.
I expected to struggle with the content of this book. I expected it would be hard for me to read about Nadia Murad’s horrifying experience at the hands of ISIS. I did not expect The Last Girl to be fascinating and easy to read.
Imagine you’re a 21 year-old-woman living in a community where everyone is loved and cared for. Things are not easy, but everyone gets by and helps each other. The village in which you live is the only one you’ve known, and your dream is to teach history or do make up for others. It’s all you know, and it makes you happy.
One day, all of this is torn apart and the life you once knew no longer exists. ISIS, the most hated terrorist group in the entire world, comes to your part of Iraq and lays waste to everyone you ever held dear. All the men are rounded up and killed. A few escape, but not many. All the women, girls and boys are rounded up in the school house. These women and girls are sorted into two categories, house slaves and sex slaves. The boys are sent to camps where they are brainwashed and become fighters for ISIS.
This is Nadia’s story. And it happened because she is Yazidi, a religion not recognized by the fanatics of ISIS. There is no tolerance for something different. Different is “other,” and “other” is not human and can therefore be treated in abhorrent fashion.
For a month, she was passed around between men who raped her repeatedly, grew tired of her, and sent her to another man. There is no sugar-coating this, no way to make it easy to take. Nadia Murad’s memoir makes sure the reader understands exactly what happened to her, and girls like her, in state-sponsored genocide of the Yazidi people.
Murad was a “lucky” one. She escaped and was helped across the border into Kurdistan where she was reunited with the few remaining members of her family. There, she realized she needed to tell her story. She’s gone from someone who had never seen an airplane to flying all over the world relating the horrors all Yazidi suffered at the hands of ISIS.
The Last Girl is a powerful book, and I’m glad to have been able to bear witness to Nadia Murad’s story, and her drive to help others become aware of, and stop such horrifying atrocities around the globe. I, too, hope that she is “the last girl in the world with a story like [hers].” (p. 308)
#readingisresistance is a collaboration between readers and book bloggers who believe in the activism of reading; especially in the current political climate. Reading enriches, teaches, and allows us to experience the lives of others. It leads us to understanding. It forces us to confront the hard questions, and asks us to engage with the world in a way which leads to change. Join the resistance, read.
What’s Auntie Reading Now?: The Last Girl
by Nadia Murad
The Last Girl by Nadia Murad ~ Review
Review: Zealot
Title: Zealot
Author: Reza Aslan
Published: 2013
ISBN-13: 9781400069224
Publisher: Random House
Twitter: @RezaAslan
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Thank you to the publisher for sending a review copy
Publisher’s blurb:
Zealot yields a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of Jesus’ life and mission.
#ReadingIsResistance to conventional wisdom, and “truths” which fly in the face of established facts.
Let me just say I’ve had a tough time writing a meaningful review. It’s so well-researched and well- written I’m sure a third reading is on the horizon. Ancient religions and the intersection with politics is a favorite topic, and I’ve read so much over the years it’s hard to not stray into tangents. The short version, is that I loved Reza Aslan’s Zealot more on the second reading than I did on the first.
Aslan puts the story of Jesus into context of the socio-economic-political-religious times during which he lived and preached. He frames Jesus as a zealot. “Zeal implied a strict adherence to the Torah and the Law, a refusal to serve any foreign master – to serve any human master at all – and an uncompromising devotion to the sovereignty of God.” (p. 40) In the three years of his ministry, Jesus was plainly, and simply, a rabble rouser.
That’s the Jesus I learned about in church. He cared for the poor, defied authority and made promises of a kingdom for everyone who believed. That last one marked him as a failure. As with any good story, it’s more complex than that.
Aslan cautions, “For every well-attested, heavily researched, and eminently authoritative argument made about the historical Jesus, there is an equally well-attested, equally researched, and equally authoritative argument opposing it.” (p. xx)
Zealot reflects a methodology towards history and story telling about the world’s most famous character which makes it a great read. It isn’t about proving faith, it’s about taking an evidence-based approach to discuss why Jesus came to matter so much, and still matters over 2,000 years after his death. Reza Aslan has done an excellent job of that, and makes me hunger to know even more.
#readingisresistance is a collaboration between readers and book bloggers who believe in the activism of reading; especially in the current political climate. Reading enriches, teaches, and allows us to experience the lives of others. It leads us to understanding. It forces us to confront the hard questions, and asks us to engage with the world in a way which leads to change. Join the resistance, read.
What’s Auntie Reading Now?: Zealot
by Reza Aslan
Zealot by Reza Aslan ~ Review
New to the Stacks: The Imagineers of War
signed by author
Sharon Weinberger
The Imagineers of War by Sharon Weinberger ~ Review
What’s Auntie Reading Now?: The Witch of Lime Street
by David Jaher
The Witch of Lime Street by David Jaher ~ Review
Review: Who I Am
Title: Who I Am
Author: Pete Townshend
Published: 2012
ISBN-13: 9780062127242
Publisher: Harper Collins
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Harper Collins blurb:
From the voice of a generation:
…smashed his first guitar onstage, in 1964, by accident.
…heard the voice of God on a vibrating bed in rural Illinois.
…invented the Marshall stack, feedback, and the concept album.
…stole his windmill guitar-playing from Keith Richards.
…detached from his body in an airplane, on LSD, and nearly died.
…has some explaining to do.
…is the most literary and literate musician of the last fifty years.
…planned to write his memoir when he was 21.
…published this book at 67.One of rock music’s most intelligent and literary performers, Pete Townshend—guitarist, songwriter, editor—tells his closest-held stories about the origins of the preeminent twentieth-century band The Who, his own career as an artist and performer, and his restless life in and out of the public eye in this candid autobiography, Who I Am.
With eloquence, fierce intelligence, and brutal honesty, Pete Townshend has written a deeply personal book that also stands as a primary source for popular music’s greatest epoch. Readers will be confronted by a man laying bare who he is, an artist who has asked for nearly sixty years: Who are you?
I entered Who I Am with trepidation. Autobiographies can be dangerously self-centered, filled with rationale for bad behavior. Often, they can be poorly written. Neither is true with Townshend’s book.
At times it reads as a recitation of events from a calendar. But what struck me most about Townshend was his honesty about the triumvirate of a rock god’s life, and his struggles with hidden memories of child abuse, his spiritual practice, and his love and devotion to making and writing music.
Process is one of those nebulous words which gets thrown around. Reading about others’ processes helps me understand mine. Townshend proudly discusses how much work went into his process, and how much joy it brought him.
He is also deeply honest about what an absolute horror he was. And his struggles to come to grips with any of it while living the privileged life his music afforded him. It’s also clear that without his music, Townshend’s life would have been one of complete and utter misery, with little hope for even a moment of joy.
Where would our world of music be without the influence of Pete Townshend and The Who? I’m glad we’ll never have to know.
What’s Auntie Reading Now? – Who I Am by Pete Townshend
Review: Princess – A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia
by Jean Sasson
Title: Princess – A True Story Of Life Behind The Veil In Saudi Arabia
Author: Jean Sasson
Published: 2001
ISBN-13: 9780967673745
Publisher:Windsor-Brooke Books
Twitter: @JeanSasson
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No matter what we do, our future is linked to one prerequisite: the degree of kindness in the man who rules us. (p. 138)
In some ways, Jean Sasson’s Princess reads like a breathless, salacious tell-all. A behind the scenes story of life as a princess in the Saudi royal family. But beneath the glamorous veneer are stories of torture, rape, and misogyny. It confirms every horrible thing we Westerners have ever heard about the treatment of women in the Middle East.
The princess in this book is called Sultana Al Sa’ud who met Sasson in 1983 while Sasson was living in Saudi Arabia. They became friends, and Sultana began to tell her story, which then became the book.
Behind the veil, Sultana is said to be smart and funny, and beautiful. She wants the freedom to choose her destiny, the right to decide how to live her life. But in front of the veil, Sultana is confronted with the reality that a woman’s life is never her own. Especially a woman of the royal family.
The men are controlling. Marriages are arranged. Women and children are treated as nothing more than pets and toys. Sultana’s brother gets all the attention and is allowed to do heinous things with no regard or reprimand. He is after all, male. And males of the royal family are given free rein to do as they like with the riches made available to them.
Females, on the other hand, are only allowed to do what the males allow. And females are monitored closely. There’s little that comes as a surprise in Sultana’s story.
Given this rich background, Sasson’s gossipy writing style gives Sultana’s story a more fictional flavor than Sultana deserves. There are many other reviews available which call into question the veracity of Sultana’s story. I don’t quite know what to make of this so-called controversy.
My take away from the book is what one is supposed to take away. Women are treated horribly in the Middle East and the world has much work to do in ensuring the civil rights of women. I’m not sure Princess does much to advance that cause. It reads more Jackie Collins than anything. I’d suggest giving Princess a pass and read Nnedi Okorafor’s brilliant science fiction series, Binti or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists, which are both more entertaining than Princess.
#readingisresistance is a collaboration between readers and book bloggers who believe in the activism of reading; especially in the current political climate. Reading enriches, teaches, and allows us to experience the lives of others. It leads us to understanding. It forces us to confront the hard questions, and asks us to engage with the world in a way which leads to change. Join the resistance, read.
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